After her husband's death, Annie discovered he had placed 100 bets a day

Annie Ashton's husband took his life in the UK after suffering from a gambling addiction. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica) Link copiedShareShare articleAnnie Ashton still remembers the moment she discovered her husband had placed over 100 bets a day, in the lead up to his suicide death. "I describe it as someone taking a hammer to your head and smashing it into pieces," she said of the impact the discovery had on her life. Her husband, Luke Ashton was found dead on April 22, 2021 in South Yorkshire in England. He was 40 years old, a husband and father, someone his wife remembers as a "happy chap" and a "very funny" man with an "intelligent sense of humour." Ms Ashton said it was three weeks after Luke Ashton's death, when police returned his phone to her, that the gambling that preceded his death was uncovered. "From that, I was able to access bank details, which then led me to a PayPal account, which then led me to transactions that were going from PayPal into a gambling operator's platform," Ms Ashton explained. After that discovery, she asked the coroner to investigate her husband's death. That investigation led to what media reports at the time described as a landmark ruling in England. Coroner Ivan Cartwright found Mr Ashton was suffering from a longstanding gambling disorder "which contributed to his decision to take his life". Ms Ashton has been campaigning for stronger gambling regulations since her husband's death. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica) The coroner found that the gambling operator he used did not interact with him in any meaningful way in the two years preceding his death. "Opportunities were missed, which may possibly have changed the outcome for Luke," the coroner said. The Guardian UK reported during the inquest that the gambling operator, Betfair, used an algorithm that was meant to identify customers at risk of harm. It also reported that Richard Clark, the managing director of Betfair's parent company, Flutter, told the inquest: "it does look like we should have done more." Ms Ashton said it was the first time in England that a coroner had listed gambling disorder as a cause of death. In a letter to the Coroner following the inquest, Flutter said the company had made "a number of changes to our systems and controls since early 2021, the majority prior to becoming aware that Mr Ashton had taken his own life". The company said it would "incorporate additional learnings" from Mr Ashton's case following his death, including reviewing the patterns of play in his betting activity to amend their safer gambling models and controls. Since her husband's death, Ms Ashton has campaigned for stronger regulation of the gambling industry and greater awareness of gambling harm, including in Australia, where she recently visited Melbourne to work with gambling researchers. Ms Ashton said gambling disorder was still a "hidden addiction, a hidden illness within the professional world as well". It's something she has been working to change. Ms Ashton met her husband when they were in high school, but it was years later that they became a couple and had a child. In 2018, Ms Ashton learnt he had lost money gambling when she opened a letter that included details of a bank loan he had taken out, which Ms Ashton said she had been unaware of. Ms Ashton said after the couple paid off those gambling debts, her husband self-excluded from the gambling operator he had been using and told her he was finished with gambling. "I hate gambling, I absolutely hate it, I was just trying to win the money back," Ms Ashton remembered her husband saying. She said at the time she didn't know anything about gambling disorder, and she accepted what her husband said. After the inquest into his death, the coroner found Mr Ashton's gambling disorder was "longstanding, at least from 2019". The coroner found "Luke had been assessed as a low-risk gambler by the operator" and that his gambling was "most intensive in the 10 weeks prior to his death". For Ms Ashton, the inquest uncovered evidence about gambling disorder and her husband's gambling that she had not known. She said data from Mr Ashton's phone and from the gambling operator was shown, as well as evidence from medical experts. "The more and more I discovered through all these different pieces of evidence, the more and more it set in, that this was a huge problem, and it was completely undetected, and yet there's all this evidence of Luke's gambling that ultimately led to a catastrophic end for Luke," she said. Ms Ashton described gambling disorder as a "hidden addiction". (ABC News: Jasmine Hines) In the two years since those findings, Ms Ashton has continued her campaigns for reform. She is involved in a civil case relating to her husband's death, has led a petition trying to stop gambling operators from being able to offer free bet incentives, and has sought a judicial review of the UK's gambling regulator. Ms Ashton said she has also started to appre

After her husband's death, Annie discovered he had placed 100 bets a day

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